It was a favorite pastime with my grandmother, when the morning’s work was done, to uncover her flax-wheel, seat herself, and call me to sit by her, and, after my childish manner, read to her from the “Life of General Francis Marion,” by Mason L. Weems, the graphic account of the general’s exploits, by the venerable parson.  There was not a story in the book that she did not know, almost as a party concerned, and she would ply her work of flax-spinning while she gave me close and intense attention.  At times, when the historian was at fault in his facts—­and, to say the truth, that was more frequently the case than comports with veracious history—­she would cease the impelling motion of her foot upon the pedal of her little wheel, drop her thread, and, gently arresting the fly of her spool, she would lift her iron-framed spectacles, and with great gravity say:  “Read that again.  Ah! it is not as it happened, your grandfather was in that fight, and I will tell you how it was.”  This was so frequently the case, that now, when more than sixty years have flown, I am at a loss to know, if the knowledge of most of these facts which tenaciously clings to my memory, was originally derived from Weems’s book, or my grandmother’s narrations.  In these forays and conflicts, whenever my grandfather was a party, her information was derived from him and his associates, and of course was deemed by her authentic; and whenever these differed from the historian’s narrative, his, of consequence, was untrue.  Finally, Weems, upon one of his book-selling excursions, which simply meant disposing of his own writings, came through her neighborhood, and with the gravity of age, left verbally his own biography with Mrs. McJoy, a neighbor; this made him, as he phrased it, General Washington’s preacher.  He was never after assailed as a lying author:  but whenever his narrative was opposed to her memory, she had the excuse for him, that his informant had deceived him.

To have seen General Washington, even without having held the holy office of his preacher, sanctified in her estimation any and every one.  She had seen him, and it was the especial glory of her life.  Yes, she had seen him, and remembered minutely his eyes, his hair, his mouth and his hands—­and even his black horse, with a star in his face, and his one white foot and long, sweeping tail.  So often did I listen to the story, that in after boyhood I came to believe I had seen him also, though his death occurred twenty days before I was born.  My dear, good mother has often told me that but for an attack of ague, which kept the venerable lady from our home for a month or more, I should have been honored with bearing the old hero’s name through life.  So intent was she in this particular, that she never liked my being named after Billy Crafford (for so she pronounced his name) for whom the partiality of my father caused him to name me.  Few remain to remember the horrors of this partisan warfare.  The very traditions are being obliterated by those of the recent civil war, so rife with scenes and deeds sufficiently horrible for the appetite of the curious in crime and cruelty.